Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Loving Grant

Ordinarily, I share with you the things that made me happy in all the comics I bought for the week. But this week, I will focus exclusively on Grant Morrison's first issue of Batman.

As regular readers know, my admiration for Morrison's work is not without qualifications. In fact, I've called quite a lot of what he's written total crap, incoherent ravings passing themselves off as profundities. So, suffice it to say, I'm not given to praising Morrison as some kind of reflex action, as many readers seem to be.

Hold on, naysayers! A lot of Morrison's stuff comes together over time. It seems at first just a bunch of disconnected vignettes, but then you see where he's going with it all, and can only gaze in wonder as he juggles the pieces.

I say this given that I'm about as much a fan of Grant as Scipio is; I call bullshit on a lot of his stuff, but when it works, you can see he's a master of the adventure comics genre.

Me? I'm not the biggest fan of Batman. I'm not sticking with Detective Comics. However... this has me coming back at least one more time, if for no other reason than"Next in...BATMAN #656It's the Dark Knight vs the League of Assassins' Ninja Man-Bats, courtesy of Grant, andy & Jesse!"

That was not the real Batman. As mentioned later, the Batman we see in the first pages is actually a cop who has gone nuts. This is why he's willing to shoot Joker with a gun, then toss him in the garbage.